Faculty Profile for Dr. Jacob Doss
Biography Section
Biography and Education
Jacob Doss is a Lecturer in Religious Studies in the Department of Philosophy at the Texas State University. His training is as a historian of religion of medieval Europe. His research explores the intersection of gender, education, and conceptions of childhood in twelfth-century Cistercian monasticism and addresses how medieval Christian notions of masculinity shaped religious education by constructing, co-opting, and normalizing violent, martial masculinities.Dr. Doss’ current book project, Making Monastic Men: Imagined “Childhood,” Education, and Gender in Cistercian Formation, (1100-1250) examines the importance of the metaphor of “childhood” for conceptualizing mature monastic gender identities. His research utilizes an often-overlooked foundational textual genre for medieval pedagogy: ascetic florilegia. These collections of pithy sayings from scripture and para-scriptural sources not only mediated Christian knowledge for monks but also provided them the language for their gendered understandings of vice and virtue.
Doss has published articles in Church History and Studies in Medievalism. His research has been supported by The American Catholic Historical Association, the American Historical Association, The Medieval Academy of America, the Hill Museum & Manuscript Library, and the University of Texas at Austin.
He grew up in Northwest Arkansas where he attended the University of Arkansas and earned his bachelor’s with a double major in history and anthropology, while minoring in religious studies. He then completed his master’s in church history at Boston College before moving to Austin to attend the University of Texas.
Selected Scholarly/Creative Work
- Doss, J. W. (2024, January). Review of Bernard of Clairvaux: An Inner Life by Brian Patrick McGuire. Speculum. https://doi.org/https://doi.org/10.1086/728373
- Doss, J. W. (2023). “Metaphor, Moral Formation, and a Carolingian era Florilegium: The Liber scintillarum and Cistercian Education at the turn of the Thirteenth Century.” Cîteaux: Commentarii Cistercienses, 73, 101–117. https://doi.org/10.2143/CIT.73.1.0000000
- Doss, J. W. (2022). “Making Masculine Monks: Gender, Space, and the Imagined ‘Child’ in Twelfth-Century Cistercian Identity Formation.” Church History, 91(3), 467–491. https://doi.org/https://doi.org/10.1017/S0009640722002098
- Doss, J. W. (2022). “To be a Monkish Man: Medievalism, Monasticism, Education, and Gender in the United States’ Culture Wars.” Studies in Medievalism, 31, 37–44. Retrieved from https://www.jstor.org/stable/j.ctv24cns6q.9
Selected Awards
- Award / Honor Recipient: Best Doctoral Dissertation on the History of Children, Childhood, or Youth Defended in 2022, Society for the History of Children and Youth. 2023
- Award / Honor Recipient: Kuhn Family Intellectual Entrepreneurship Mentor Award, Kuhn Family Intellectual Entrepreneurship Awards. August 2016 - December 2016
Selected Grants
- Doss, Jacob Westbrook. Presidents' Graduate Travel Award, Pacific Coast Branch-American Historical Association, Professional Society. (Funded: 2019). Grant.
- Doss, Jacob Westbrook. Professional Development Grant, University of Texas at Austin, Institutional (Higher Ed). (Funded: September 2019 - December 2019). Grant.
- Doss, Jacob Westbrook. Professional Development Grant, University of Texas at Austin, Institutional (Higher Ed). (Funded: January 2019 - May 2019). Grant.
- Doss, Jacob Westbrook. Graduate Student Research Grant, The American Catholic Historical Association, Professional Society. (Funded: 2018). Grant.
- Doss, Jacob Westbrook. John Boswell Dissertation Grant, The Medieval Academy of America, Professional Society. (Funded: 2018). Grant.
Selected Service Activities
Organizer
The Institute for Historical Studies in the Department of History, University of Texas at Austin, Panel: “Imagining Tradition: Right-wing Uses of History.”
March 30, 2023
Reviewer / Referee
Essays in Medieval Studies
August 2022-December 2022
Organizer
Symposium on Gender, History, & Sexuality, Department of History, University of Texas at Austin
August 2021-May 2022
Coordinator / Organizer
Panel: “Age in Monastic Life.” Organized with Amelia Kennedy. 57th International Congress on Medieval Studies. The Medieval Institute. Western Michigan University.
May 9, 2022-May 14, 2022
Member
The Medieval Academy of America Graduate Student Committee
2019-2021